


Blindspot

by MachaSWicket



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternative Universe - No Island, Amnesia, Blindspot AU, Child Abduction, F/M, FBI Agent Oliver Queen, Gen, Kidnapping, Tattoos, kind of, or more accurately PREMISE of blindspot au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2018-12-30 22:36:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12118674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MachaSWicket/pseuds/MachaSWicket
Summary: SUMMARY:Oliver looks through the one-way glass and sees a petite young woman with long, dark hair -- deep black, and streaked with purple, unless the fluorescent lights are playing tricks on him. She's sitting alone at the table with her hands clasped in front of her, the bright royal blue of her nails standing out starkly against her pale skin. There are dark tattoos along the bicep of her left arm, and he can see a little ink peeking out of her light green tank top.She's beautiful, and she looks moderately terrified. Whatever he expected to see, it isn't this.NOTE:  some spoilers for the first few episodes of "Blindspot," but really I've taken the idea of the universe and twisted it to fit my needs. ;)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to quiveringbunny for the gorgeous art she so generously made for this story. <3 <3 <3

 

 

 

 

When Oliver pushes through the swinging double doors that lead into the long hallway lined with interview rooms, he spots Sara Lance leaning against the wall about halfway down. Her wavy blonde hair obscures her face, but Oliver would recognize that navy blue leather motorcycle jacket anywhere.

Sara looks up when she hears the squeal of hinges, giving him that crooked grin of hers. "Took you long enough," she greets.

Sara's an old friend, and one of the few SCPD cops he actually gets along with, so Oliver ignores the verbal jab. "What do we have?" he asks. All he knows is there was a suspected bomb downtown -- hence Sara's involvement, as she is, to her father's everlasting despair, on the HRT and the bomb squad -- and that SCPD had called his boss requesting him. Not an FBI agent from the Starling office, but Oliver specifically.

That's not how things usually work, which leaves Oliver a little wary and a lot frustrated.

Sara pushes off the wall and tips her head in the direction of the last interview room. "Found a woman in a bag," she says, and he doesn't miss the fact that she's watching him very closely for a reaction.

Oliver takes a beat to process that information. "A woman or the body of a woman?" he asks, because he's been on some cases where murder victims have been buried in bags, rugs, old luggage. Humanity is terrible, basically, which is a lesson he learned as a teenager. And Sara is _still_  studying his reactions. He doesn't like it, because she's clearly looking for indications that he's got prior knowledge of a woman -- or the body of a woman -- in a bag.

Somehow, Oliver is at least a person of interest to her, and the very idea sparks his anger and indignation -- he's dedicated his entire life to protecting people, and she should _know_  that.

"Unconscious," Sara clarifies, and Oliver nods once, relieved. Homicides are tough; in the back of his mind, he’s always worried he’ll recognize the victim. They're nearing the end of the hallway as Sara continues, "Large duffel bag appeared in the middle of Bullock Square. Unattended. Beat cop called in the bomb squad for possible IED," she pauses as they reach the observation window into an interview room. "We found her instead."

Oliver looks through the one-way glass and sees a petite young woman with long, dark hair -- deep black, and streaked with purple, unless the fluorescent lights are playing tricks on him. She's sitting alone at the table with her hands clasped in front of her, the bright royal blue of her nails standing out starkly against her pale skin. There are dark tattoos along the bicep of her left arm, and he can see a little ink peeking out of her light green tank top.

She's beautiful, and she looks moderately terrified. Whatever he expected to see, it isn't this.

"Who is she?" Oliver asks finally. There's something about her that captures his attention, that keeps his gaze on her even as he talks to Sara. Some strange familiarity.

"You don't know?" Sara asks, her tone carefully neutral.

Oliver whips his gaze over to his friend. "Am I supposed to know her?" he asks, eyes narrowing. He’s trying not to be confrontational, not to trip whatever wires Sara’s laying out for him, but he wonders if he should call Dig, his partner, to get him a lawyer.

Sara doesn't respond right away, and when she does, her answer surprises him. "I kind of hoped you might recognize her," she admits. "We found her unconscious in a duffel bag in the middle of the city. She was in her underwear, with no identification of any kind. No match on her prints."

Oliver shakes his head slightly, caught between revulsion for whomever put that woman in a bag, and confusion over what possible goals would be advanced by any of this.

"When she woke up in the ambulance," Sara continues, "we learned she doesn't know why she was in a bag, or who might have put there there, or even who she is. Initial diagnosis is amnesia, but she needs a full workup to see if we can determine root cause -- brain injury, drugs, whatever. She speaks English with a nondescript American accent, knows all the things you'd expect an adult of reasonable intelligence to know, but she can't remember anything about herself, or her family and friends, or her job. She can't even remember her name."

Oliver takes the information in, his gaze drawn back to the unidentified woman in the interview room. She's in there alone, her shoulders hunched up a bit, which makes him wonder if she's cold or just nervous. From what Sara's said, this woman isn't suspected of any wrongdoing -- if anything, the circumstances of her discovery suggest she's the victim of... _something_. And he hasn't heard anything that would cause the SCPD to request his presence. "Okay," he says, turning back to Sara. "but none of that requires FBI involvement, never mind mine, Sara."

She nods once, then slips her phone out of her pocket. "She's got a lot of tattoos," Sara announces, unlocking the phone and flipping through screens.

Frustrated, Oliver snaps, "So do I." He resists the urge to touch the one on his pectoral, the first tattoo he ever got, a missing girl’s name in dark ink.

Sara gives him a look. "We were cataloging her tattoos, looking for anything that could help identify her, and we saw this." She tips her phone towards him. "She's got your name tattooed on her back."

Numbly, Oliver takes the phone and stares down at a full color picture of the tattoo. It's between her shoulder blades, a couple inches down from her neck. In nearly illegible Gothic font, it says OLIVER QUEEN, FBI, surrounded by decorative scrolls and lines. The sight of the tattoo sickens him -- he doesn't believe she did this of her own volition, not when she was stuffed into a bag half-naked. It also makes his protective instincts kick in -- Thea's always telling him his need to keep everyone he loves safe can be stifling, but it's been ingrained in him since that awful night fifteen years ago. It's what drove him to the FBI in the first place.

"Jesus," he whispers, unable to tear his gaze from the tattoo. "Who would do this?"

"You really don't know her," Sara says, and he thinks it's supposed to be a question.

"I think I'd remember a woman with _my name_  tattooed on her," he points out irritably. Then he straightens, his decision already made. Whoever she is, this woman should be at the hospital, not the police station, and he's going to take it upon himself to make that happen. "I'm taking her to Starling General," he tells Sara, who gives him a wry grin in response. He ignores her reaction, pressing on. "How's her emotional state?"

"She's scared," Sara answers, trailing behind him as he moves towards the door to the interview room. "Understandably so." She reaches out, pulling his arm back. "Let me introduce you. And, Oliver, remember -- all conversations in these rooms are recorded."

He nods once, stepping back to allow her in the door first.

Sara pauses, one hand on the doorknob. "We're calling her Jane."

 

& & &

 

Jane Doe looks up when the door opens, squinting slightly as she watches them. Her body is tense, and Oliver imagines everything must be overwhelming for her right now. Not knowing who's friend or foe, not knowing who she can trust -- that's a very specific kind of torture, one Oliver remembers vividly from those months he was held in Afghanistan after his unit was betrayed by a few soldiers who saw terrorists as a business opportunity.

Oliver's been told that he's good with witnesses and victims, that he's got the kind of face that people trust. He’s never known how to take that, particularly after being paired with John Diggle, who exudes warmth and trustworthiness. But he can’t deny that his victim interviews usually go pretty well -- he supposes this will be a good test.

"Hi," he says, approaching the other side of the table slowly, "I'm Oliver Queen." He watches for a flicker of recognition, or of fear, or maybe even hope, but she just stares up at him. Her eyes are vividly blue, and boldly curious. She's even more magnetic up close, and he has the strange tingling of recognition again. Her eyes -- they’re somehow familiar to him. "Can you tell me your name?" he asks, shifting to sit across from her so he's not looming over her. He folds his hands together, doing his best to project an air of calmness, even as he studies her.

Jane tips her head slightly, and Oliver gets the sense that her sharp gaze doesn’t miss much. "Detective Lance named me Jane Doe. So. I guess Jane." Her nose crinkles and her gaze slides away from his, down to where her hands are tangled together on the tabletop. "Doesn't feel right," she adds, quietly, as if she's speaking to herself. Then her eyes snap back to his. "Wait, you're Oliver Queen."

He nods, interested in her reaction to this information.

Her attention is laser sharp now, her gaze scanning his face quickly. "Like, Oliver Queen, FBI?" There's something about the way she leans into his name as she repeats it, the way she drops her voice a little lower as if she’s imitating him introducing himself that would be funny in another situation.

Oliver nods again. "Yes."

Her body language tightens further, her arms crossed protectively over her chest, and she turns her attention to Sara. "Why did you bring him here?" she demands, and Oliver adjusts his impression of her -- logical and smart and brave enough to push through the fear that's still obvious in the tense lines of her body.

Sara answers evenly, "Because he's the best lead we have on your identity so far. Or at least we thought he was. But he doesn't recognize you and you don't recognize him, so we're back at square one."

Jane lifts her chin slightly. "Shouldn't he be the prime suspect in whatever happened to me?"

Oliver's more impressed than he is offended, but he lets Sara answer. He's not sure that Jane actually _trusts_  Sara, but she's at least trusting enough to demand information from her. He’s a little hopeful that Sara's friendship with him may make Jane more likely to give him a shot.

"I've known Oliver a long time," Sara says calmly, "and he's an FBI agent with an excellent track record. Before that, he was in the Army. He's one of the good guys, Jane."

"People's jobs don't make them good or bad," Jane answers stubbornly. "He could totally have a tattooing-people-and-stuffing-them-in-bags fetish." Her bright gaze turns to him again, and she openly studies him, eyes narrowing slightly, and a proud kind of affection blooms in his chest at her reactions.

Still, Oliver can't quite control his smirk. "That's definitely not a fetish of mine," he answers, belatedly realizing his word choice makes it sound like he has _other_  fetishes.

To his amusement, a light blush steals across Jane's face. "Well, I certainly don't go around tattooing strangers' names on my body," she says. Loudly. Then she frowns. "I mean, I would know if that was the kind of person I am, right? God, _why_ can't I remember?" She slams a palm on the table and then winces, shaking her hand.

Oliver's attention catches on the bright blue nail polish. There are chips in a couple places, and small bruises and cuts on her hands. Defensive wounds. He flicks his gaze to Sara, who dips her chin slightly in agreement. "Jane," Oliver says, pulling her attention back to him. "I know the paramedics looked you over, but I think we should take you to the hospital for some additional medical tests."

“I’m not a guinea pig,” she snaps back, arms crossed again, shoulders curling a bit with nervousness. Her gaze slips away from him, darting around the room, and she adds quietly, “I’m pretty sure I don’t like needles. At all.” She frowns down at the small, dark bird tattooed on her left bicep. “Which is kind of confusing.”

Oliver lifts his hands in gesture of placation. “You have no obvious head wounds that would explain your amnesia, but you should be seen by a neurologist, or--” He shrugs-- “whatever kind of doctor specializes in this kind of thing.”

Jane watches him, eyes narrowed. “I doubt there are doctors who specialize in tattooed women who’ve been stuffed into duffel bags like so much garbage to be tossed away.”

Oliver swallows about a dozen unhelpful responses, instead focusing on the anguish underlying her protest. She’s feeling out of control, and scared, lost and alone -- Oliver can relate -- he just needs her to believe that. And trust him, at least a little. “Let’s find a doctor who can help us figure out what happened to you, Jane,” he says.

Her chin lifts. “And punish the people who did it,” she adds, her voice ringing with determination, and in that moment, he realizes why she's seemed familiar to him -- he’s been just as alone, just as angry, just as full of the need to hurt whoever hurt him as she is right now.

Oliver makes himself take a deep breath, his fingers twitching together in that familiar, self-soothing motion. He can’t fall down his own painful rabbit hole, and more importantly, Jane deserves to be the focus of his attention, not his own old wounds. Oliver makes himself smile. “Definitely, Jane. We’ll definitely punish the people who did it.”

He means her captors; he does. And he’s made this same promise over and over again on behalf of the girl whose name he tattooed on his body twelve years ago.

Jane’s brow wrinkles just a bit as she watches him, probably recognizing that he _means_ it to his very soul, that these words are a vow he’s making. And after a long moment, she nods and pushes to her feet, her body language tentative, but not as defensive as before. Like maybe she’s deciding to trust him, at least a little bit.

Oliver’s smile is small but genuine as he gestures to the door. “I’ll drive you.” He doesn’t push her to decide, doesn’t rush her; he just stands behind his chair and waits, letting her determine her own fate in her own time.

Jane’s gaze flits to Sara briefly, then fixes back on him. After a long moment, she takes a breath, nods, and moves towards the door.

 

& & &

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

Hours after leaving Jane in the hospital, Oliver jerks awake from a nightmare, his breathing harsh, heart hammering, throat dry.

This isn’t unusual -- he has nightmares a lot; has had them for years. These days, he tends to relive his months as a P.O.W. Tonight, though, he wakes up from an older nightmare; he wakes with her name on his lips.

_ Felicity _ .

He can still picture her so clearly -- 12 going on 35, a whip-smart girl with long, wavy, light brown hair, bright blue eyes, and the cutest dimples he’d ever seen. She’s frozen in his mind that way, from the long days she spent at the house with Thea that summer -- the summer Felicity and he became unlikely friends. 

The summer Felicity disappeared.

That ever-present despair and guilt announces itself, and Oliver knows he won’t sleep again tonight. That long, sepia-toned summer is never far from his memories. He’d been a couple years older than Felicity, and in the midst of turning into an arrogant teenager with too much money and freedom and a near-total lack of common sense. He didn’t understand it at the time, as a surly, selfish boy, but the best thing that ever happened to him was having his best friend shipped to Spain for the summer, leaving him to spend July and August with his little sister and Felicity. 

They’d spent hours in the pool, in the backyard, playing video games in the media room. Felicity’s unflinching honesty and her unwillingness to put up with his worst instincts had already curbed at least some of his excesses that summer. He hates to think of the kind of person he would’ve become without her influence; he hopes he would’ve learned how to be a decent person without that awful night when Thea came running into the second floor family room, crying and screaming that  _ a man stole Felicity! _

But Felicity’s abrupt loss, her continued absence -- his grief and anger and regret burned away the selfishness. Eventually, he became the kind of person who ignored his family’s fame and wealth and enlisted in the armed services because he wanted --  _ needed _ \-- to help people.

He hopes she would be proud of the man he’s become.

He’s never forgotten her, or let himself stop looking into the long-cold leads when he has time to himself, and he’s never been able to let go of his massive sense of guilt. Because Felicity had just...  _ disappeared _ , with only a few trampled shrubs in the carefully manicured gardens to provide the only leads the police ever had. Thea had woken by the strange sounds of a struggle only to see her friend being carried out the sliding glass doors to the back portico, and that’s the last anyone ever saw of Felicity. 

Felicity’s absence is the constant, dull ache that has accompanied him for fifteen years, but the pain feels especially sharp tonight. So Oliver pulls himself out of bed, pausing to shoot a quick text to Thea before heading to the gym in his building. 

Two hours later, the sun is up, and a freshly showered, semi-exhausted Oliver is headed for the hospital. They’d admitted Jane more because she has nowhere to stay than any acute medical need, and he knows they’ll release her today. 

When he reaches the nurses’ station, he flashes his badge and keeps walking, straight to the room he’d left Jane in last night. Pausing in the door, he watches her for a moment. She’s awake, wearing mismatched scrubs and those standard issue non-skid slipper socks, curled up in the truly uncomfortable looking armchair near the window. Her long dark hair is pulled up into a ponytail, showing off the purple streaks. She’s staring out into the early morning, chin propped on her hand, face pensive and unguarded, and something in Oliver’s chest tightens at the sight.

He doesn’t want to startle her, so he taps his knuckles lightly on the door.

She startles anyway, jerking around to face him, one hand pressed to her chest. “God, you scared me.”

“I’m sorry,” he answers. “I thought maybe you’d like some breakfast.”

She studies him curiously, and those mesmerizing eyes of hers have him taking a few steps closer. “Are you investigating me?” she asks.

“No, I’m not. I’m just--” He pauses, flummoxed by the question, by his own instincts. “I’m not sure what I’m doing,” he admits finally, “but whoever tattooed my name on your back clearly had a reason to do so. I’d like to make sure we figure that out, but more than that, I want to make sure you’re safe.”

She bristles a little, and he wonders if she even knows why. “I can take care of myself,” she tells him. Then she frowns. “I mean, probably? I  _ feel _ like I can, but how would I actually know?” Her confrontational body language melts away and she seems uncertain. “This sucks.”

Oliver can’t even imagine. How hollow would his life feel without his family, imperfect as it may be? What if he had no memory of Thea or of his parents? What if he lost those precious memories of Felicity? Would he still feel her loss? He wonders if Jane can feel all the things that have happened to her, even if she can’t remember why.

He wants to help, somehow, and the words tumble out of his mouth without forethought. “Pancakes make everything better,” he says, and for a moment, he’s fifteen again, standing in his childhood home, unable to offer Felicity any useful advice about her strange but loving mother or her long-absent father, but wanting to help anyway. He blinks away the memory to find Jane watching him closely.

“I’m pretty sure I love pancakes,” she tells him, with the first bit of genuine enthusiasm that he’s heard from her. “But I don’t have any real clothes.”

At that, Oliver grins. “It’s not high fashion, but there’s a Target on the way.”

She squints at him. “That’s a weird name for a department store. It’s a department store, right? With red--” She waves a hand in the air-- “decor?”

“Yes,” he agrees, heartened by this indication that there  _ are _ some memories she’s able to access. Maybe the rest will come back. 

“Okay,” she agrees, and they head to the nurses’ station, then to Target, where Jane chooses jeans and a bright purple top quickly, then spends nearly twenty minutes in the shoe section, before selecting low-heeled ankle boots. She shoos Oliver away before disappearing briefly to grab underwear, bras, and socks, reappearing looking both flustered and frustrated.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I remember my bra size,” she answers, then closes her eyes with a little whimper. Her cheeks are a little pink. “It’s just -- I remember some things. Or  _ know _ some things, at least. Why do I remember my bra size but not my name? It’s frustrating to have all these other parts of my life be a total blank.”

Oliver gives an unhelpful shrug -- he really needs to research amnesia -- then ushers her to the checkouts after a quick loop through the pharmacy section for deodorant and the hair-and-makeup section for some essentials. He waits by the doors while she changes in the bathroom after borrowing his ever-present Swiss army knife to remove tags. When she walks out, her discarded clothes in the Target bag in her hand, he can’t help but give her an appreciative once over.

Her new jeans are fitted and flattering, the boots give her a couple more inches of height, and she’s taken a few minutes to brush out her long, dark hair. Her eyes seem bluer, which he assumes has something to do with the makeup, and her lips are stained a deep maroon.

She’s stunning.

But Oliver realizes it’s really not his place to say that, so he clears his throat. “Ready?”

She nods. “Thank you,” she says, lifting the bag a bit and gesturing at herself. “For this.”

“Don’t mention it,” he tells her. “Breakfast?”

“Definitely.”

They settle into a comfortable silence on the way to the greasy spoon diner a couple of blocks from the FBI building. Although she’s not saying much, whenever Oliver glances at her, Jane is looking around, observing, and he gets the sense that her brain is going a thousand miles an hour.

He’s about to ask her about it when his phone chirps the ringtone he has set for his partner, Diggle. “Sorry,” he murmurs, shifting to pull his phone from his pocket and answer. “Dig, what’s up?”

“The hospital said you have Jane Doe?” Dig says by way of greeting.

Oliver swallows down a flash of irritation. “I don’t  _ have _ her,” he says. “We’re eating breakfast.” 

“Can you bring her in?” Diggle asks, and the question hits Oliver wrong. 

“Why?” he demands. He can’t account for the fierce protectiveness he feels about Jane, but the FBI is an investigative agency. They’re not particularly skilled at victim support, and he can’t help but read any additional interest in her as suspicion.

“Her tattoo,” Diggle answers, and it doesn’t escape Oliver that his partner’s using a softer tone now. “That design around your name? Curtis got a look at it this morning and he thinks it’s some kind of code.”

“Code?” Oliver echoes, picturing the complicated encryption codes used by the covert agencies and trying to square it with his admittedly faint memory of the design Diggle’s talking about. Oliver’s recollection of that tattoo is pretty exclusively  _ his name _ on her skin -- the other details didn’t register nearly as forcefully. “Like, an alpha-numeric code?” 

Across the vinyl tabletop, Jane’s head jerks up, and she’s watching him with a sudden sharp focus. “Computer code?” she asks.

“Some kind of programming code,” Diggle explains. “They’re apparently 1s and 0s.”

“Computer code,” he surmises, answering Jane’s question and Diggle’s statement at the same time. Jane looks impatient, so Oliver moves the phone away from his face a bit. “What’s wrong?”

“I think I’m good at that,” Jane answers, flexing her fingers against the table. “Coding. That feels...  _ familiar _ .”

Oliver nods once, then speaks into the phone. “We’re at the diner. We’ll be there soon.”

 

& & &

 

It’s been nearly an hour since Oliver signed Jane in, and escorted her through security and up to the large conference room that Director Michaels favors. Jane stuck close to him through meeting the very tall, very enthusiastic Curtis Holt, and the refined, no-nonsense Lyla Michaels. 

Diggle, of course, is exiled to his office down the hall, because he and Lyla are  _ really  _ bad at pretending not to be in love when they’re in the office, and they’re technically not supposed to be dating. They’d been divorced -- mostly amicably -- when Lyla accepted the promotion, and their reunion is a little too new for them to bring it to the brass. Instead, they keep a careful distance at work and hope like hell no one notices. 

“So this,” Curtis explains, projecting a high-resolution image of Jane’s tattoo on the screen, “right here is pretty cleverly hidden. You see, it looks like a decorative flourish, but--” He flips a switch and a cropped version of the picture displays, with very little of Oliver’s name still visible-- “if you look a little closer here, you’ll see it’s actually a code. And by code, I mean--”

“It’s an x-axis bio-numetric algorithm,” Jane interrupts, drifting closer to the string of characters. She lifts a hand, her blue nailpolish bright against the screen as she traces below the characters. “Or part of one, anyway. I know this code. I--” She wrinkles her nose, head tilting slightly. “I feel like...” she pauses, pressing her lips together as she studies the code. “I think maybe I wrote it.”

“You’re a coder?” Curtis asks enthusiastically, because that is his default setting. Oliver tries to catch his gaze, wanting the other agent to simmer down, but Curtis only has eyes for Jane at the moment.

Jane doesn’t spare Curtis a glance. “I need a computer,” she declares, then spins to look at Oliver. “Oliver?”

Lyla shifts her gaze to Oliver, asking without words for his take on the situation. He nods once, answering his boss and Jane at the same time. “Let’s see what she can do.”

Curtis taps Jane’s shoulder and ushers her to his terminal. As they get her settled, Lyla sidles closer to Oliver and fixes him with a look. “She calls you Oliver,  _ Agent Queen _ ?”

Oliver flushes at her implication, but doesn’t back down. “She’s not the subject of an investigation, Lyla. Imagine waking up one day totally alone in the world, with no friends or family, no one you can trust. She needed a friendly face.”

Lyla studies him for a long moment. “I don’t disagree with your assessment, Oliver,” she answers slowly, “but please tread lightly. We don’t know anything about this woman.”

Oliver frowns at her. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

Lyla gives him one of her best  _ are you kidding me  _ faces. “Imagine waking up one day all alone in the world,” she parrots his words back to him, “and getting  _ this _ \--” She gestures vaguely at his chest-- “as your  _ friendly face _ .”

He’s at least moderately offended that she thinks so little of him. “I haven’t don’t anything close to what you’re suggesting, and--”

“Oliver, I’m not suggesting you’ve  _ done _ anything,” Lyla interrupts, touching his arm briefly, and he can read the apology in her tone. “I’m saying it’s natural for someone under duress to develop...” she pauses minutely, “a strong attachment to the person they feel they can trust.”

As much as it irks him, her point is well taken. Oliver has been through training on what to do if he’s kidnapped or ends up on his own in a foreign place or if he’s tortured. He knows exactly what she’s talking about; hell, he  _ remembers _ his irrational gratitude towards the terrorist who happened to be tasked with keeping his group of captives alive. Oliver had effusively thanked the man who shoved the bare minimum of sustenance into his cell once a day, because in context his mind saw it as a kindness.

Jane’s situation is hardly the same as being held captive for months on end, but he can’t deny the potential for her to see him for something other than what he is. He’s known her for roughly twelve hours, and he already wants to be sure he’s not the cause of her hurt or distress. This isn’t an abnormal reaction for him to have when working with a crime victim, but the intensity in this instance is a bit surprising.

He glances at Jane, who’s engrossed in something on the computer, an eager Curtis watching over her shoulder, then steps closer to Lyla. “What should I do? I’m just trying to help.”

“I know,” Lyla assures him. “You’re doing fine, Oliver, just... be mindful of what I said, okay? Make sure she knows you’re her friend, but in an ethically complicated circumstance.”

Before he can come up with a response, Jane sits back from the computer and lets out a slightly stunned, “Oh, frak.”

Wholly refocused on Jane, now, Oliver takes a few steps closer to the computer station, glancing at Curtis for some kind of clue what’s going on, but the other agent just looks concerned. “What’s wrong?” Oliver demands.

“This code,” Jane answers slowly, still facing the monitor, so he can only see her in profile. “What’s in that tattoo --  _ my  _ tattoo,” she corrects with a little frown, “is just a fragment. So I just -- I finished it.” 

Oliver glances at Curtis, who is still silent, which is... not a great sign. “Okay?” Oliver prompts.

“I think I was able to finish it like that because I’m the one who wrote it in the first place,” Jane explains. Her shoulders are tense again, the way they were last night when he first saw her, a woman alone and scared in an interrogation room. 

“How sure are you?” Lyla asks.

Jane shrugs a shoulder, lifting her hands from the keyboard. “Pretty sure. Very sure. I would be positive, except that I can’t actually remember writing it -- you know, the  _ first _ time, I mean -- so this recognition, this feeling of...” She tips her head, her lips pouting as she searches for the right words, “ _ ownership _ \-- that’s all I have to go one. But I’m pretty sure.” Her gaze strays back to the screen and she squints a little, looking mildly ill.

“Okay,” Oliver says, still trying to match her reaction to what she’s uncovered. “That’s good, right?” When she turns to look up at him, there’s a wrinkle of concern in her forehead and she’s chewing her lip. He keeps talking, wanting to get that look off of her face. “Maybe there’s a way we can use this code or-- or program or whatever -- Maybe it’s a clue to your identity.”

“That’s the problem,” she says. “It  _ is _ a clue.”

The energy in the room shifts, from curiosity to a tense kind of anticipation as Lyla and Curtis exchange glances. Oliver can’t tear his gaze from Jane, who’s starting to look downright scared.

“Jane?” he prompts. 

“This is a pretty sophisticated little program,” she says, “which, I mean, it’s nice to know I’m probably really  _ good _ at this, but the design is intended to give the user root access to any server.”

Lyla stills beside him, and Curtis’s eyebrows are raised very high, but Oliver doesn’t have any idea what all of that means. He gives Jane an embarrassed shrug. “Could you translate that to English for me?”

Jane’s gaze skitters to Lyla then back to him, and she takes a breath. “Well, hackers would use this kind of code to infiltrate encrypted servers and systems and--” She swallows. “And then steal data, or plant a backdoor for future data stealing, or even inject a virus to corrupt the entire system. This program is--” She stops again, and her shoulders slump. “I think I might be kind of a criminal?” 

 

& & &

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I said, but should reiterate for avid Blindspot fans, I have only seen the first handful of episodes so it's unlikely my take on this premise will mirror whatever the show has done. :)


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

Everything happens quickly after Jane’s uncertain quasi-confession.

Lyla ushers Jane away from Curtis’s terminal, while Curtis drops into his seat and leans forward to study the code on the screen. “Oh,” he says, low and drawn out with dawning realization. “Oh, shit.”

Oliver doesn’t take his eyes off of Jane, who has crossed her arms defensively and is trying and failing to keep her trepidation off of her face. Lyla leads Jane back to the large conference table, telling her quietly to take a seat. Jane complies, but tugs her legs up and curls her arms around her knees. Her long dark hair obscures part of her face when she tilts her chin down. 

Lyla’s looking back and forth between Jane and Curtis, so Oliver steps forward. “I’ve got this,” he tells her. She nods once and strides over to Curtis, leaning in to see what he’s doing.

Oliver pulls out the seat beside Jane and drops into it, swiveling it a bit towards her. He takes a moment to organize his thoughts and decide how to present them. “Jane, I don’t know what’s going on right now,” he begins slowly, “and I know that you don’t either. This is a pretty unusual situation all around, and I want to make sure you’re protected.”

Her eyes are so, so blue as she studies him. “Are you going to read me my rights?” Her voice cracks, just a little, but she does not. 

“No,” he denies quickly. “No, Jane, I just--” He stops, tries again. “My friend is a lawyer. I’d like to call and ask her to represent you, so you have someone here who’s entirely on your side while we look into that code.” He’s itching to  _ do something _ , but he knows very little is within Jane’s control right now, and she needs to make this decision for herself. So he makes himself wait patiently for a response.

Jane hesitates, her hand lifting to her forehead and rubbing a spot above her left eye. “I’m a little scared right now.”

Oliver feels a rush of warmth, of empathy, of affection, even. Gently, he places his hand over hers where it’s cupping her knee. “I know. All of this--” He gestures around the room with his free hand-- “can be a little much. Let me do this for you.”

“I can’t pay her,” Jane points out. “Not yet, anyway. I need--” She sits up a bit, her hand slipping out from under his as she reaches for the armrests. “I’ll need to get a job and how do I do that without a Social Security Number? Or a  _ name _ ? I can’t seriously tell people my name is Jane Doe.”

He can see her starting to spiral, her anxiety building. “Hey, hey,” he says, gently touching her shoulder to get her attention. “These are the kinds of things a lawyer could help you with.”

“That and all the potential legal jeopardy I’m in?” she asks sardonically.

Oliver shrugs, because she’s not  _ wrong _ , exactly, but he’s hoping she’s not right, either. And he really doesn’t want to focus on the darker possibilities. “Can I call my friend? She’s great -- I promise, you’ll like her.”

Jane nods once. “Okay.”

He’s up immediately, taking a few steps away from the table as he pulls his phone out and scrolls his contacts. Laurel is Sara’s sister, and another old friend of Oliver’s from high school. She’s a lawyer, currently working at a non-profit representing the indigent -- a crusader for justice, just like her sister. 

Laurel answers quickly, but she sounds busy, so Oliver jumps right in. “Laurel, hi, sorry to call out of the blue on this, but is there any chance you could represent someone in possible legal jeopardy?”

There’s a pause, and when Oliver glances over at Jane, she’s twisting a deep purple lock of hair between her fingers and watching him worriedly. He gives her what he hopes is a reassuring smile. 

“Legal jeopardy?” Laurel repeats slowly. “It’s pretty unusual for law enforcement of any stripe to arrange attorneys for someone they’re trying to put in jail. It’s also potentially unethical.”

“She’s not--” Oliver stops, shaking his head. “It’s complicated, but she’s not currently a suspect. Just--”

“A person of interest?” Laurel interjects, her tone betraying her lack of patience with him on the topic. “Getting someone a lawyer just to cover your ass when you’re trying to railroad them is  _ not _ okay, Ollie, and--”

“And,” he interrupts forcefully, irritated right back at her for her presumption, “you should  _ know _ I would never do that. If you’re not comfortable because I’m the one calling you, that’s fine. But CNRI--”

“I’m sorry,” Laurel breaks in. “It’s been -- the DA’s office has been particularly spiteful recently, and this kind of felt the same.” She takes a breath, and when she speaks again it’s not  _ conciliatory _ , exactly, because that’s not Laurel’s no-nonsense style, but it’s something in that neighborhood. “You’re right -- I know you wouldn’t do that. So tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know,” Oliver admits. “ _ She _ doesn’t know -- Jane -- she’s got amnesia, but she may have some knowledge of hacking activities, and I would just feel better if she had someone unequivocally in her corner when she’s talking to the FBI.”

“The woman from last night,” Laurel says, a little breathless, now, with surprise. “The one from Bullock Square?” She doesn’t wait for his confirmation. “Sara told me a little, but -- she has amnesia?”

“Yes. We don’t know much, but...” 

“Yeah,” Laurel answers, and he can practically hear the wheels spinning. It’s a complicated situation, maybe unprecedented, and he trusts Laurel to see all the possible legal pitfalls for Jane that he would certainly miss. “Yeah, I can -- Give me an hour and I’ll be there. Don’t let her talk to anyone about hacking or any other criminal or civil issue until I get there, okay?”

“Thank you, Laurel,” Oliver says, ending the call and moving over to the conference table. He takes the seat beside Jane, glancing up at Lyla, before focusing his attention on Jane. “She’ll be here soon,” he tells her. “I’ve known Laurel for years. She’s smart and ethical and believes everyone deserves an equal shot whenever they’re interacting with the justice system.”

Jane considers this, then nods. “She sounds lovely.”

Oliver smiles a bit. “She is. She’s actually Sara’s sister.”

This information perks Jane up some. “Sara from last night?”

“The same,” he confirms, relieved when her anxiety seems to lessen. “Laurel asked me to tell you not to talk to any of us FBI types about that--” He hooks a thumb towards Curtis-- “until she gets here.”

Jane glances somewhat longingly at the computers, but nods. “Okay.”

An idea occurs to him, and he straightens. “Actually, how about we get you out of here?” He looks to Lyla. “I’m going to have her sit with Dig,” he says, and it’s not really a question, but he needs Lyla’s permission anyway. 

Lyla evaluates the idea in that quick, brusque-if-you-don’t-know-her way. “Good,” she decides, and refocuses on Curtis.

Oliver turns back to Jane with a smile. “C’mon, let me introduce you to Dig.”

“Dig is a person?” Jane asks skeptically as she unfolds herself from her seat. “Because it’s also a verb.”

Oliver huffs a laugh and leads her out the door.

 

& & &

 

Knocking lightly on the doorframe to Dig’s small, neat office, Oliver waits for his partner to look up. “Dig, I’d like you to meet Jane.” He steps into the office, moving to the side so that Jane has room to follow him, which she does, if a bit shyly. “Jane, this is John Diggle, my partner.”

Dig is already up and skirting the edge of his desk, offering his hand. “Jane, good to meet you.”

“Hi,” Jane says, looking back and forth between Dig and Oliver as she shakes Dig’s hand. “All the men in this office are gargantuan. Is that like a job requirement? Every guy is either six-eight or has arms the size of bazookas?” When Dig chuckles and steps back, leaning against his desk, Jane flushes. “I’m sorry, that was rude.” Then she frowns. “Maybe not  _ rude _ , exactly, but definitely a strange thing to say, even if your biceps really are huge.” She crinkles her forehead. “Sorry.”

“No apologies necessary,” Dig assures her. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m guessing you’re having kind of a stressful day.”

Jane laughs briefly, and the hint of dimples makes Oliver’s breath catch. “The only day of my life that I can actually remember, and it’s pretty full of suck.” Then she straightens up, eyebrows lifting. “Present company excluded, obviously.”

Dig meets Oliver’s eyes, smirking without actually moving a muscle in his face. “Obviously.”

“Jane,” Oliver interrupts, “I’m going to ask you to stay here with Dig until Laurel arrives.”

“Oh.” Jane shifts, crossing her arms. She nods. “Okay. Sure.” Despite her easy agreement, Oliver gets the sense that him handing her off to Dig is not setting that well with her.

Oliver takes a half-step towards her. “I just want to check in with Lyla, and since Dig can’t be involved in this--” He chokes back the word  _ investigation _ \-- “matter, I thought that he--”

“Why?” Jane asks, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Puzzled, Oliver drifts closer to her. “Why what?”

“Why can’t Dig be involved in my matter?” She gives a tiny headshake and sighs. “ _ This _ matter. Not  _ my _ matter. Sounds like I meant--” She stops short, eyes going wide, and points at Dig, then Oliver. “It sounds creepy, I mean. Yes,” she nods once. “Creepy.” Then she presses her lips together and watches them silently.

“I have a conflict,” Dig explains. 

“With me?” Jane is suddenly laser focused, all bashfulness gone; that fierce intelligence in her eyes is trained fully on Dig. “Do you know who I am?” she demands, a hint of wistfulness in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” Dig answers, “but, I don’t.”

Deflating a bit, Jane studies Dig like she’s trying to solve a riddle. “Then what’s the conflict?”

Dig holds her gaze steadily. “I used to be married to Director Michaels.” Jane stares right back, her expression blank. “Lyla,” Dig adds.

“Ohhh,” Jane answers, empathy in her voice. Oliver realizes part of why he’s been reacting so strongly to Jane’s presence is that she -- despite her tough exterior -- is so open and genuine in her interactions with others. It’s a refreshing quality. “I’m sorry,” she adds. “That must be awkward.”

“It was for a while after we split up,” Dig admits easily. “But we’re dating again.” 

“Oh!” Jane grins and swats Dig’s arm playfully. “You should have led with that -- it’s a much better conflict.” Jane tilts her head, still smiling. “She’s a total badass.”

Oliver is momentarily distracted by the somehow familiar wave of affection he feels for Jane and her mannerisms. It’s ridiculous, but there’s something about her that makes him feel like he’s known her for years. He studies her face, searching for some memory to make this make sense, but he’s reminded, instead, of Felicity. It blindsides him, but the way Jane smiles, her dimples, her quick, sharp mind -- the similarities with the girl he’d lost so many years ago are starting to pile up. 

Oliver stills, staring at Jane, searching for Felicity. The impossible thought overshadows everything else in the room.

Oblivious to Oliver’s momentary crisis, Dig returns Jane’s grin and nods. “She is.”

“Well,” Jane seems to be reeling herself back in, her smile retreating slowly, “I probably shouldn’t have assaulted an FBI agent, but I was just excited. You and Lyla seem well-suited.” She frowns. “Not that I can  _ remember _ what a good relationship looks like, or how I would recognize it, or if I’ve ever even  _ had _ one.” She takes an unsteady breath. 

Jane’s anguish brings Oliver out of his memories and back to the present. He takes a deep breath, ignoring the strange look Dig gives him. 

“I’m very sorry to hear that, Jane,” Dig tells her with his trademark warm candor. 

Oliver’s seen it a million times before -- witnesses, criminals,  _ anyone _ who gets Diggle’s full, warm attention just opens up. So he’s not surprised when Jane sags against the back of the visitor chair and nods. “It’s so frustrating. It’s like something I was  _ just _ about to say, but it flitted out of my mind and all that’s left is this  _ impression _ of what’s missing. You know that feeling?"

There’s a sharp knock at the door, and they all turn to find Lyla watching them. “There’s been a development.”

Oliver knows immediately it’s not good, whatever it is. Lyla’s frame is tense, her palms pressed flat to her thighs. He and Dig exchange a quick look of understanding -- something’s wrong, and it’s about Jane Doe.

“Jane,” Lyla says, her tone neutral, “we’re going to need to ask you some questions about--”

“No way,” Oliver interrupts stepping forward, placing himself between Jane and Lyla. It’s instinctual, and probably a really bad idea, considering Lyla is his boss and he’s known Jane for less than a day, but he can’t help his protective instincts. 

Lyla remains unimpressed. “Agent Queen,” she warns, then shifts her weight and turns her attention back to Jane. “Agent Holt has a preliminary match to the code you just wrote,” she explains. 

Jane shifts, the curiosity clear on her face. “You mean you’ve seen the code somewhere else?” She’s trying to hide the flare of hope she’s feeling. “That could -- it could be a clue. About me.”

“It could,” Lyla agrees. “And that’s why we need to ask you a few questions.”

“Wait,” Oliver objects. “Not yet.” He turns to Jane and says, “Laurel’s on her way, just--” He reaches out and gently touches her shoulder. “Let’s pause until she gets here, okay?”

Jane lifts her chin, and for a moment, Oliver is absolutely sure she’s going to argue with him. She’s clearly impatient to dig into whatever clues this code may provide, but Oliver gives her a pleading look and she relents. “Okay,” she agrees, reluctance clear in her tone.

“Thank you.” Oliver squeezes her shoulder gently, then releases her and turns back to his boss. “Lyla, can we just--”

“Come,” Lyla interrupts, turning on her heel and moving into the hallway. Oliver follows her halfway back to the conference room before she turns back to him and says, “There was an attack on Starling National Bank last night. The hack resulted in nearly fifty million dollars stolen, transferred offshore to accounts that have already been emptied, and the code used is a match for what Jane Doe just wrote.”

Oliver absorbs the information, trying to square it with what he’s observed of Jane. “And you think she was involved?”

Lyla gives nothing away. “We need to ask her some questions.”

“Are you arresting her?” Oliver presses. “Her lawyer is on the way.”

“Her lawyer?” Lyla’s eyebrow quirks, a wordless condemnation.

“Laurel Lance,” Oliver explains. “She’s with CNRI.”

Lyla’s eyes flash with irritation. “Fine, we’ll wait for her lawyer to question her, but we need to investigate this link, Oliver. Jane Doe is the only lead we have.”

“She’s not a lead,” he protests. “In fact, she was in police custody when the attack on the bank happened, wasn’t she? How can you possibly treat her like she’s the perpetrator?”

“She said herself that she thinks she wrote the code, Oliver,” Lyla argues. “And I’ll remind you to watch your tone with me.”

Oliver takes a breath. He genuinely likes Lyla, and he respects her, but he can’t help but feel she’s very, very wrong about Jane Doe. “We found her dumped like so much trash,” he begins, a bit more quietly. “You don’t think it’s more likely that her captors got what they needed from her and then threw her away?”

“Why leave her in the middle of Bullock Square?” Lyla demands. “Why not just kill her?”

“As much fun as it is to listen to this conversation,” Jane interrupts, “I’d really prefer it if you’d talk _ to  _ me and not about me.” She’s standing just outside Dig’s office, her arms crossed protectively as she watches them. She looks pale in the harsh fluorescent lights, but there is steel in her spine.

“Jane,” Oliver says. “Sorry, we were just--”

“Yelling about me possibly being a criminal,” Jane interrupts with a nod. “I don’t know if I am.” She frowns a bit as she continues. “I don’t think I am -- I don’t feel like a criminal? There’s nothing about being here at the FBI office that makes me nervous. Shouldn’t that make me nervous if I’m a criminal?”

“Probably.” Oliver shrugs.

Jane nods slowly. “You’d think I’d be terrified being here, terrified of all of you. But when Oliver brought me here, I felt... I felt like maybe I would be safe here.” She shrugs. “I can’t  _ remember _ so I’m not sure, but it feels like the first time in a long time I’ve felt safe.”

Oliver’s chest feels tight, and he fights the urge to move closer to Jane, to offer some sort of comfort, or at least confirmation that she’s safe here.

Jane looks Lyla in the eye and continues, her voice low and steady. “I honestly don’t know what I did before yesterday, but I don’t want to hurt people, or steal from them, or whatever else it is you think I might have done.”

“Jane,” Oliver says, unable to resist moving closer to her. 

Jane glances at him, offering up the hint of a smile. “I can’t tell you the history of that code -- at least not until I get my memory back,” Jane says. “But I can probably help you with it. I understand how it would be deployed, and what it would do. I can help.” She turns her expectant gaze from Oliver back to Lyla. “You can interrogate me if you need to, but I want to help.”

 

& & &


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience -- it's been a rough couple of writing months.

 

It’s more than a little irresponsible, but Oliver misses most of Lyla’s careful questioning of Jane. 

He’s in the room -- seated across from Jane, actually -- but he cannot keep himself focused on the careful questions and answers. Instead, he studies Jane -- the shape of her face, the bright sound of her voice, the way her hands trace spastic shapes in the air when she speaks.

It’s been an hour since that strange moment of recognition in Dig’s office, that spark of similarity he swears he’d noticed between Jane and his memories of Felicity, but he hasn’t had any time to process until now. 

First, he’d had to persuade --  _ again  _ \-- both Jane and Lyla to just  _ wait for Laurel _ . Then he’d collected Laurel at security, escorted her up while outlining the very basics of the situation, and introduced her to Jane. At which point, Jane and Laurel had sequestered themselves in Oliver’s office for a quick attorney-client meeting, while Oliver and Lyla got a (very confusing) rundown on Jane’s code from Curtis. 

Oliver had tried very hard to make sense of Curtis’s explanation, but he’s still pretty sure he only  _ almost _ understands exactly how Jane’s virus operates and why that’s bad. 

“It’s not inherently bad,” Curtis had objected. “More like this is an incredibly powerful tool that can be -- and has been -- used for some real bad outcomes.” 

“Like stealing $47.8 million from Starling National via unauthorized wire transfers?” While Oliver will clearly never be assigned to the computer crimes division, he gets the gist of how Jane’s code works.

“Well... yes.”

Then Lyla had asked a more detailed question and Oliver’d promptly lost the thread again. In all fairness, Lyla has picked up enough technological expertise in her position to have a better handle on it than Oliver, whose expertise lies in strategy, pattern recognition, and interviewing and interrogating. But Oliver strongly dislikes not understanding things, particularly important things, so he corners Curtis to ask a couple clarifying questions while they’re walking into the secure conference room.

It’s only once Laurel and Jane join Lyla, Curtis, and Oliver, and the group settles around the conference table that Oliver has a moment to refocus his attention on Jane. 

She’s sitting beside Laurel, across from Oliver and Curtis, with Lyla at the head of the table. Jane carefully folds her hands together on the wood tabletop before her, turning wide, expressive eyes to Lyla, who initially defers to Curtis to give a high level overview of what happened at Starling National Bank last night.

To Laurel’s clear frustration, Jane offers color commentary on the virus, and Oliver should probably pay more attention to the potential legal jeopardy. He just can’t, though. 

The way Jane listens so attentively, the clear intelligence in her eyes, the nervous fluttering of her hands in the air when she’s trying to explain a complicated idea in simple words -- all of it brings echoes of Felicity to his mind. She’d been three years younger than him that wonderful, awful summer, but much smarter, and his most cherished memories of her remain the times she’d been able to break down complicated scientific theories into something that finally clicked in his brain. He remembers the way Felicity’s face brightened with the excitement of sharing knowledge, and the way she used to blush crimson when she thought she was talking too much.

Oliver knows chances are small that this woman before him is the girl he’d lost so many years ago. He  _ knows _ that, but now that the idea has crossed his mind, he’s... consumed.

He makes a whole mental list of things to follow up on -- whether SCPD swabbed Jane yesterday for DNA testing; whether the casefile from Felicity’s disappearance has any DNA, or whether that kind of testing would require bringing Donna Smoak into the loop; whether sketch artists at the missing persons organization ever funded an age progression drawing of what Felicity would look like as an adult; whether his own pictures of Felicity are accessible, in case he decides to posit his theory aloud.

And no matter how hard he tries to tell himself he’s wrong, it  _ is _ quickly becoming his theory. He can’t make himself dismiss the possibility; he can’t stop the hope welling up in his chest.

_ What if Jane is Felicity Smoak _ ?

The scrape of a chair against the floor tears Oliver from his thoughts, and he realizes that Curtis is closing his laptop, and Lyla is already standing. He’s been so caught up in what an investigation into whether Jane Doe could possibly be the long-missing Felicity Smoak would look like that he’s managed to miss most of the conversation.

Oliver feels a flush of embarrassment for his unprofessionalism, but none of the others seems to have noticed his lapse.

An awkward silence hangs over the group as they move to the door, until Curtis turns to Jane with a genuine smile and says, “That was really cool. Your brain is like--” He uses his free hand to make a sort of exploding motion-- “so great.”

Jane laughs. “Thanks.” Curtis nods and turns to leave, while Jane glances back to Laurel. “I’m gonna…” She hooks a thumb in the direction of the bathroom, then makes an awkward little wave before turning on her heel and walking away, leaving Laurel, Lyla, and Oliver lingering just outside the conference room. 

“You’re not bringing charges,” Laurel starts, in that no-nonsense way of hers.

Oliver cringes internally, not sure how Lyla will react, but his boss seems to appreciate the things that she and Laurel have in common. “I’d like her to stay in the city,” Lyla says by way of an answer. “We don’t currently have enough to hold her, nor,” she continues, before Oliver can interject in Jane’s defense, “am I particularly interested in doing so, given what we know so far.”

The tension in Oliver’s back eases somewhat. It’s nothing like a promise, but at least he knows Lyla doesn’t suspect Jane of being heavily involved in the robbery.

Laurel simply nods. “Does the Bureau have any funds for this sort of thing?” 

Lyla’s lips twitch with what would be a smile in other circumstances. “Abandoned amnesiacs who may be witnesses to a crime or possibly even offenders are  _ pretty _ rare,” she observes, “so, no, we don’t have any assistance programs set up that Jane would qualify for.”

“CNRI works with a few shelters in the city,” Laurel answers, “so I’m sure I can--”

“No,” Oliver interjects, viscerally opposed to the idea. He knows these shelters provide far more for their residents than rows of hard canvas cots and scratchy blankets -- many are converted houses, actually, and she’d be warm and safe in the hands of compassionate professionals. Still, something about the idea of Jane being dropped off alone, utterly devoid of her own resources rubs him the wrong way.

Laurel and Lyla turn eerily similar furrowed brows in his direction. “Why not?” Laurel asks. 

“It’s not safe,” Oliver answers. He can see Laurel’s hackles rising, and he holds up a hand in a wordless request for patience. “Not the shelters. I just mean -- for  _ her _ ,” he clarifies. “She’s got amnesia, and we don’t know what critical things she may not remember.”

“She’s perfectly functional,” Lyla points out, “and has shown no executive function deficits.”

“I know, but it’s only been a day, Lyla,” Oliver argues. “Not even a full day.”

“Fair enough,” Lyla concedes. “What do you suggest instead?”

Irrationally, he wants to take care of Jane, wants to keep an eye on her just in case she needs anything, but he knows the idea of installing her in his guest bedroom is a non-starter. “A hotel,” he offers instead, “at least for tonight. And we can talk to her about longer term options tomorrow.”

Laurel watches him skeptically for a moment, then concedes with a quick tilt of her head. “Okay, but she doesn’t remember her bank account or a credit card number, right?” It’s a reasonable point -- Laurel is already representing Jane pro bono, she can’t exactly be expected to house and feed Jane, too.

“I’ll get her a room,” Oliver offers. 

“Agent Queen,” Lyla says, and just her tone of voice is enough to convey her thoughts on the matter.

“Look,” he says, “there’s nothing unethical about me making sure a possible witness to a crime has a safe place to stay for a day or two.” Luckily for him, Jane reappears in the hallway before either Lyla or Laurel can object further. He lowers his voice and quickly adds, “I’ll call the Starling Grand and reserve a room.”

“Text me with confirmation,” Laurel answers, then turns a bright smile to Jane. “Ready to get out of here for a while? If you don’t remember Big Belly Burger,” she pauses long enough for Jane to shake her head, “well, then, I think you’re really going to enjoy our lunch.” Laurel checks her watch and winces. “Late lunch. No wonder I’m feeling cranky.”

Jane tips her head to the side, lips pursing slightly, and Oliver is hit so hard by memories of Felicity that he almost misses her next words. “I could definitely eat.” She looks at him before he’s remotely ready, and her expression shifts from mischievous to curious so quickly he wonders what she can read on his face. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” His voice sounds completely unconvincing, and he clears his throat. “Yeah,” he says again with a nod. 

Jane pauses, glancing at Lyla, then Laurel, before she meets his gaze again. “I guess I’ll see you later.” 

It comes out like a question, and Oliver sounds much more certain when he answers, “Definitely.”

They hold eye contact for a long beat, before Laurel shifts, drawing Jane’s attention. “Are you ready?” Laurel asks.

“Sure,” Jane answers, absently patting her jeans pocket and frowning. “I don’t remember owning a phone, but I feel  _ really  _ naked knowing I don’t have one,” she mutters, and Oliver adds  _ get a burner phone for Jane _ to his mental list of tasks for the day. Maybe he’ll take a quick drive over to the Starling Grand -- pay for the room and leave a phone for Jane.

Oliver watches the two women leave, his gaze lingering longer than is strictly appropriate judging by the arch of Lyla’s eyebrows when he glances at her. 

He backs up a step, tilting his head towards Dig’s office. “I’ll go catch Dig up.”

 

& & &

 

After work, Oliver does, in fact, stop by the Starling Grand to leave a prepaid cellphone for Jane, along with a note sealed in an envelope. He’d agonized a bit over what to say, but had kept it short and explanatory, with an invitation to call or text him at any time, for any reason. 

Also, he programmed his contact information in her new phone.

And sent a quick,  _ Hi, this is my number _ text, just so something would be waiting for her when she turned the phone on. 

As he’s leaving the hotel, he texts Laurel to let her know a room is waiting for Jane, then heads home. It’s only a ten minute drive from the business district to his building, a twenty-story tower a couple blocks from Starling Bay, chosen more for its security than the location. Inside, he detours to the mailroom to check his box, then stops short halfway through the spacious lobby. 

For some reason, Diggle is camped out on one of those style-over-function lobby chairs, reading a months-old issue of  _ Car & Driver _ . He’s removed his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his pale blue dress shirt, but still has his suit jacket on to cover his firearm.

“Dig, hi,” Oliver greets, confused by his partner’s presence, “did I forget dinner plans or something?”

“No.” Dig flips the magazine closed and places it back on the side table before pushing himself upright. “But dinner’s not a bad idea. Drake’s?”

Drake’s is a favorite of theirs -- a curious cross between a dark English pub with heavy wooden touches, and an American sports bar with a wall of large screen TVs. More importantly, they’ve got a great selection of beer on tap and cook a decent burger. 

It’s also where Diggle and Oliver go to regroup after a bad case or a tough day of testimony in court. They’ve had their fair share of emotional conversations over the years, and at least half of them have been at a booth at Drake’s.

Clearly, Oliver hasn’t been masking his inner turmoil over Jane Doe very well at all.

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees with a small sigh. Diggle is an excellent partner and a compassionate man, but when he wants to have a conversation, he is incredibly,  _ infuriatingly _ stubborn. Might as well do this now. “Let’s walk over.”

Drake’s isn’t far, and Dig catches Oliver up on the latest with Lyla -- they’re definitely probably going to report their relationship to HR, but not until next month. Oliver mostly holds his tongue on the topic, because he’s said his piece before, and also it’s a little awkward for him to have an opinion on the personal life of his boss.

Once they’re settled into their usual booth in the corner -- no one’s back is to the door, and they’ve got a decent view of the sports options playing on the TVs mounted above the bar -- Dig clasps his hands together on the table, watching Oliver quietly.

Oliver quirks an eyebrow at him. “This is your show, Dig.” He knows better to think he can avoid this conversation, but he’s sure as hell not going to start it.

“You seemed a bit anxious today,” Dig observes, “and I suspect it has to do with Jane.” He pauses minutely. “And Felicity Smoak.”

Hearing her name aloud leaves him feeling winded, somehow, but he’s not surprised that Dig already figured out what’s bothering him. They’ve been partners for years, and it only took a couple “unidentified female body”-related cases for Dig to press Oliver about his anxious reactions. Eventually, Oliver asked Dig to help him re-investigate Felicity’s abduction. It was difficult reading the terse, official narrative of a traumatic thing that he experienced, and while they’d batted around a few theories, the basic problem remains the same now as it did the day Felicity was taken: not much evidence and no leads. 

The only concrete outcome of their investigation is that Dig knows more than maybe anyone else how much Felicity’s absence has shaped Oliver’s life. 

Knowing Dig understands doesn’t keep Oliver from trying to paper over his pain, to avoid confronting it if at all possible. “Why would you say that?” 

Dig points at Oliver’s chest, where Felicity’s name lives permanently in dark, delicate font right over his heart. “You touched your tattoo a couple times earlier,” Dig says, “without really meaning to, and you’ve had that look on your face all day.”

“What look?”

Dig taps a quick rhythm on the tabletop with his forefinger. “That guilt-ridden, self-loathing look you get when you’re talking about Felicity’s disappearance. Which leads me to the conclusion that something about Jane Doe has you spun around about Felicity.”

Oliver feels too laid bare to muster a protest. In some ways, he’s never  _ not _ spun around about Felicity. He didn’t understand for a long time, but looking back now, he knows he wouldn’t have been so devastated by her disappearance if he hadn’t loved her in that childlike, reverent way that young teenagers love. 

His gaze drops to his hands on the table, and he presses his palms flat against the cool wood, focusing on the slightly uneven feel beneath his hands to anchor himself, to calm himself down. “Yeah,” he admits, his voice rough. “I--” He breaks off as their server reappears with beer and a bowl of popcorn. “Thanks.”

“Listen, man,” Dig says, turning his glass in slow circles as he talks, “you know the odds are terrible for Felicity.”

Denial and anger flood Oliver’s chest, but he appreciates that Diggle does not coddle him, even in this. “I know she’s probably--” He still can’t even say it out loud, all these years later. His mind and his heart are at odds. He simultaneously rejects the possibility of Felicity’s death, even though for years he’s had alerts set up at the Bureau to be notified of every unidentified female body within certain ages. He’s got too much experience with crime not to know that she might have died all those years ago. 

His mind knows it’s the most likely outcome; his heart simply can’t accept it. 

“Most kids,” Dig says, his voice low and kind despite the awful topic, “are taken by family members and most of them come home, but--”

“I know,” Oliver interrupts, too loudly. He takes a moment, closes his eyes and just breathes through the dread and denial he feels. “Of the kids who are killed by their abductors, the vast majority are dead within twenty-four hours.  _ I know _ . I just...” He shrugs helplessly. “But it’s  _ not _ just that. Jane -- her mannerisms, the way she talks so fast? It...” He has to stop and press his fingertips to his forehead, gathering the courage to say it out loud. “She reminds me of Felicity.”

Dig takes a slow sip of his beer. “Okay,” he says. “Can you pinpoint why?”

Oliver has a dozen reasons, a bunch of examples to point to, but the first thing he manages to say is, “There’s just something about her.”

Dig’s expression sours. “Oliver, come on, man.”

“No, I just--” Oliver breaks off, searching for a way to explain himself. “I  _ recognize _ things in her, things about Felicity that I’ve forgotten over the years.” 

A weighty silence hangs between them for several long moments.

When Diggle speaks, his voice is so full of empathy that Oliver’s eyes start to water. “You could just be seeing what you want to see, Oliver. She’s about the right age, and--”

“I swear,” Oliver interrupts, blinking rapidly, “it’s not just that. Felicity was the smartest person I’d ever met. Even that summer, she was already coding simple games on my laptop. Jane is an incredibly smart computer expert. Felicity always had a ponytail, and I remember the way it would flip around when she tilted her head while she was making a decision -- I saw that same mannerism today from Jane. Felicity’s dimples, the shape of her face -- I can’t dismiss it as a possibility, Dig. I  _ can’t _ . There has to be a way we can look into this.”

Dig holds up a hand. “You mean there has to be a way  _ without _ involving Lyla,” he guesses.

Oliver concedes the point with a shrug of his shoulder. “Do you think Lyla would let me stay involved if I told her I think Jane could be the little girl who went missing from my house years ago?”

“Of course she wouldn’t, and she’d be right. Oliver, you’re too close to this to see it clearly.”

“Dig--”

“No, let me finish, Oliver. I’m fine with looking into the possibility, if only because Jane’s around the right age and with no established identity. She fits the basic criteria of a woman we’d check out as a possibility. But you’re way past that, Oliver -- you  _ want _ Jane to be Felicity.”

Oliver slams his palm down on the table. “Of course I do!” he explodes. “I want Felicity to be  _ alive _ ! I want her to be safe! That's all I've wanted for _years_!” He’s nearly shouting, and he's certainly drawn a lot of unwanted attention from the other patrons. Oliver sits back, forcing himself to take deep breaths. 

Dig reaches across the table top and slides Oliver’s untouched beer closer. “Take a minute, man. Have a drink.”

Oliver reaches for his mug with one shaking hand, taking a long sip. It doesn’t help, but at least Dig seems mollified. “I know I’m too close for a formal Bureau investigation,” he begins, speaking in measured tones, “I'd have to recuse myself, but--”

“No  _ buts _ ,” Diggle interrupts, and he’s using his no-disagreements-allowed voice. “The Bureau  _ is _ looking into Jane’s identity, and you shouldn’t be involved unless and until we rule out the possibility that Jane could be Felicity Smoak.”

“Dig--”

“And I,” Dig continues, speaking over Oliver’s attempts to protest, “will look into that possibility.”

Relieved, Oliver slumps back a bit in his seat. “You will?”

“I will,” Dig confirms. “I won’t offer up this particular strand of inquiry to Lyla, but if she asks me, I’m not gonna lie about it.”

“Of course.” Oliver nods to emphasize how much he’s okay with Diggle’s proposed course of action. 

“You keep your head down and your nose out of this part of things, and I’ll do my best to get some answers on Jane’s identity. Do we have a deal?” Diggle offers his hand across the table.

Oliver gives his partner a smile and accepts the handshake. “Deal.”

 

& & &

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For more information on missing children, or for help: 
> 
> http://www.pollyklaas.org/about/national-child-kidnapping.html   
> http://www.missingkids.com/theissues/missing


	5. Chapter 5

 

 

 

Oliver wakes early, from a hazy, disorienting, slightly upsetting dream about Felicity. He can’t quite hold onto the details, but the bone deep longing lingers. 

Stretching slowly, Oliver rolls to the side, pulling his phone from the charger and scanning his notifications. He sits up, fully awake, when he sees that Jane has texted him. A few times, actually. His breathing speeds up as he flips to his encrypted texting app.

_ Thanks for the phone! Stupid question:  does the FBI have, like, an optometrist? _

Oliver grins at the screen and scrolls to her next text.   _ I can’t believe I remember “optometrist” and can’t remember my own name. Amnesia sucks. _

And the next.  _ Seriously, though, I’m squinting at this screen, and I reached reflexively for my face, which I think means I wear glasses? _

And her last text of the morning:   _ I suppose it’s too much to hope for some super rare prescription that would immediately reveal my identity, huh? _

He can’t help the strange warmth filling his chest as he reads, nor the care he takes crafting a reply to her.  _ Good morning, Jane. I hope the Starling Grand was to your liking last night. _  He hits send, then cringes at the possibility that it might actually sound creepy. He overcorrects into standoffish professionalism in his next text:   _ Let me check with the Victims Assistance Program -- we don’t have doctors on staff, but we have referrals and other ways to help _ .

And then he sits there in his boxer briefs, sheets pooled around his hips, staring at his phone impatiently for a response from her. Yeah, his reactions to Jane are starting to be a problem.

After ten minutes, he sighs and gets up, gathering clothes and heading for the shower. Of course, as soon as he’s lathered shampoo into his hair, he hears the text notification chime. It’s a feat of determination to finish his shower before checking his texts, even though the rest of the day, a patch of his hair feels weirdly stiff from the shampoo he didn’t manage to rinse out.

Still, he can’t be bothered to dry off -- water slides down his legs, pooling around his feet as he stands at the counter, damp and naked, to read Jane’s response.

_ Okay, thank you, then. I can check with Laurel, too _ , reads the first text; the second says,  _ Probably I should run these things through Laurel anyway, instead of bothering you. And the Grand is lovely, thank you so much. _

“Shit.” Oliver wants to answer immediately, to fix his mistakes -- hell, he wants to call her and explain himself, but he makes himself take a deep, calming breath.  _ You could never be a bother, Jane. Let me get some more information and then we can get you to an optometrist _ .

There. Better. 

Except that she doesn’t reply immediately, and Oliver finds his unreasonable desire to talk to her to be its own form of torture for the next couple hours. But he dresses and heads to work, and even puts in a few hours’ work in on a recently closed case while he waits --  _ impatiently _ \-- for the Victim’s Assistance office to get back to him with information.

“Hey, man.”

Oliver looks up to find Dig in the doorway to his small, interior office. “Dig,” he greets with a smile. “You here to save me from paperwork?”

“Nah.” Dig drops into the visitor’s chair and leans back. “Just a quick update for you on Jane.”

Oliver perks up. “Did VAP call you?”

Dig blinks. “No. Should they have?”

“She needs an optometrist,” Oliver explains with a wave. “I’m waiting on a call back.”

“Ah.” Dig taps a finger on his leg, clearly playing for time while he decides how to approach a sensitive subject. “I pulled the Felicity Smoak file,” he says in that calm, measured tone that he normally uses with victims. “We don’t have DNA on file for her,” he continues, “which means the determinative test can only be run with familial DNA.” 

Oliver thinks immediately of Donna Smoak on that horrible night, and her wrenching sobs that seemed to go on for hours after Felicity’s abduction. He remembers her panic and her anguish and her rage, which frightened him at the time. And he remembers the dull catatonia that seemed to trap her for months and months afterwards. Seeing such a vivacious, vibrant woman drained of life and color -- that was so much worse. 

But she’s made some fragile kind of peace with Felicity’s absence over the years, and Oliver doesn’t want to shatter that with a mere possibility -- especially such a possibility with such  _ low odds _ . He’s not sure Donna Smoak would ever recover from it if he brought her this sudden hope and then it turned out Jane wasn’t Felicity Smoak.

He’s not sure he’ll recover very well, either. He won’t let himself dwell on it, but he can feel the scary beginnings of hope taking hold, the growing  _ belief _ that maybe Felicity is alive; maybe Felicity is finally home.

“Oliver?” Dig prompts. 

He pulls himself out of the quicksand and takes a steadying breath. “Yeah?”

Diggle studies him for a moment, and Oliver knows his friend already knows how far down the rabbithole he’s gone. And Oliver can see the moment Dig decides to leave it alone for now. “I think we’re too early to bring in Donna Smoak, but I wanted to get your thoughts on it, since you know her.”

Of course Oliver knows Donna, but they’ve been reduced to occasional holiday or birthday cards over the years. He’s pretty sure Thea keeps in touch with Donna, but he doesn’t want to bring Thea into any of this yet, either. 

“Too early,” Oliver says, his voice rough. He clears his throat, reaching for at least a veneer of professionalism. “What about dental records?”

Dig nods. “Felicity’s dental records are in the file, but the situation is a bit... unusual.”

Typically, forensic dentistry is used to identify skeletal remains, or unidentified corpses, not living and breathing adults who may or may not be a missing child. “Can they do that with a living subject?” he wonders.

“I asked Samanda Watson, and she says this kind of comparison -- comparing a child’s records to an adult’s -- would probably be enough to rule out Jane being Felicity Smoak, but would be unlikely to produce a positive identification under the circumstances,” Dig explains. 

Oliver tilts his head. “Under the circumstances?”

“Intervening dental work,” Dig offers, “as an example. But I’ll have better information after I meet with her this afternoon.”

Oliver has some follow up questions and an uneasy churning in his stomach, but their conversation ends there, because the VAP officer calls Oliver back. Diggle pushes himself up, and they’ve worked together long enough for Oliver to understand and return the wordless  _ see you later _ . 

Ten minutes later, he’s got a late afternoon appointment for Jane with an optometrist at a place that can produce glasses in an hour, and he’s working up the courage to call her and tell her about it. He takes a deep, cleansing breath, and hits send.

Jane answers quickly. “Oliver, hi!”

“Hi, Jane,” he says. “I hope you’re free at 4?”

“ _ Am _ I,” she responds quickly, the words tumbling out faster and faster as she speaks. “Laurel has client meetings and then a hearing this afternoon, and I don’t have any possessions to sell or any money to speak of, which means it’s just me, the hotel’s basic cable package, and the paltry apps on this phone to while away the hours. Incidentally, it’s really insulting for the manufacturer to require a credit card number for you to download more apps.” She stops abruptly. “Sorry. I haven’t talked to another human in a few hours. You should’ve heard the conversational nonsense I spewed at the poor room service delivery guy this morning.”

Oliver finds himself chuckling, that warm  _ recognition _ flooding his chest. “No need to apologize. Sorry to have abandoned you at the Grand all day, but I did manage to wrangle an optometry appointment for you this afternoon.”

“My hero!” Jane answers. 

He shifts uncomfortably and chooses not to address her cheerful words. “How about I pick you up at 3:30.”

“Perfect! I’ll be in the lobby.”

“Great,” he answers, smiling into the middle distance. “I’ll see you soon, Jane.”

 

& & &

 

For someone with a lived memory of under 48 hours and limited interactions with other humans in the past 24, Jane certainly has a lot to say when Oliver picks her up. 

She tells him about the HGTV show she’d watched several episodes of, and rates the quality of her room service meal against the Big Belly burger she’d had last night, and explains the impromptu improvements she’s made to the burner phone he’d given her in detail that is so far past what Oliver can follow that he finds himself grinning at the annoying traffic in front of him and just listening to her voice.

He thinks he’d be intrigued by Jane, this resilient, brilliant, talkative woman, regardless of whether she’s the girl he lost as a teenager. There’s something about Jane that captivates him, and he can’t attribute it all to his remembered affection for a twelve-year-old girl.

But he can’t help but acknowledge that Felicity Smoak’s motormouth tendencies were legendary. 

When they reach the optometrist’s office, Oliver pulls into the fire lane and puts his FBI placard on the dash, flushing when he glances over to find Jane’s judgmental look. 

“Really?” she challenges. “This is the fire lane.”

“This is official business,” he defends weakly, but he’s already tugging the placard from its spot and pulling around to the alleyway where there’s an entrance to a parking garage. They end up three floors below ground, with Oliver’s SUV wedged uncomfortably between a midnight blue crossover and a small, yellow Mini Cooper

Oliver squeezes his way out and makes it all the way around the back of the SUV, where he finds Jane looking affectionately at the tiny yellow car. “Jane?”

“Oh!” She turns to him. “Sorry. I just... The Mini feels familiar. But wrong.” She frowns, studying the white racing stripe. “I think maybe I had a red one? Or really  _ wanted _ a red one?” she offers.

There’s a flash of excitement in his chest. “You’re remembering?”

Jane scrunches her nose. “I don’t know. I don’t think so? It’s...” She chews on her lip for a moment. “It’s more like a feeling than a thought, if that makes sense?”

“Sure,” he says, mostly for lack of anything better or more helpful to say. 

“I--” She gives a frustrated huff. “I don’t remember driving a Mini Cooper, I just... When I look at it, I...” she waves a hand helplessly, “recognize it. I feel drawn to it, like it’s an old friend.” She gives him a wry grin. “Because apparently I am friends with inanimate objects.”

Selfishly, Oliver’s excitement deflates at least a little. Because something in Jane feels drawn to a car, but she’s shown no similar pull towards him. Shouldn’t he feel familiar to her, too, if she is, in fact, Felicity Smoak?

Or would Felicity, who’d really only spent one summer as his friend, even remember him with a fraction of the significance he’s placed on their friendship? He knows she’d changed him, made him look at things differently, made him re-examine himself, but can he really presume to think the selfish, arrogant, fifteen-year-old version of himself had anywhere near the same effect on her? 

The unsettling idea that a girl who’d been  _ so _ important to him in so many ways could simply think of him as a half-remembered teenager she’d known one summer -- it throws him off, sends him reeling.   


Overwhelmed by a whirlpool of doubt, Oliver shifts his weight, struggling for something to say. He tilts his head towards the elevator bank. “We should head up,” he suggests.

Jane watches him, her brow very slightly furrowed. “Sure,” she agrees, her voice quiet and restrained as she falls into step beside him.

A strange, slightly tense silence falls between them, and Oliver could kick himself for ruining the easy comfort she’d clearly felt around him earlier. He he can’t figure out how to fix things, how to apologize for his wholly unreasonable and unfounded expectations without explaining about Felicity. And he’s pretty sure that’s the worst thing he could do for Jane.

Thankfully, once they arrive in the optometrist’s office Jane is whisked straight back to her appointment, leaving Oliver in the waiting room to try to get a handle on himself. He doesn’t know how to do this -- no matter what he wants to be true, he can’t deny that Jane is probably not Felicity Smoak, but the possibility has him trapped in a web of hope and longing.

And he’s having a hell of a time trying to keep his outsized emotional reactions from Jane. 

Oliver is so unsettled by the impossible thoughts he’s having about Jane that he finds himself scrolling to Thea’s contact info. He hits the phone icon without really thinking it through.

“Ollie,” his sister answers a bit breathlessly, “hey. What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he lies reflexively. He wants to tell Thea, but he knows it wouldn’t be fair. Aside from Donna Smoak, Thea was the most devastated by Felicity’s abduction. “Just checking in. How’s London?”

“Still good,” she answers, that familiar edge of sarcasm lining her words. Oliver knows she thinks he’s too overprotective, but it’s taken her a long time to process the trauma of witnessing Felicity’s abduction. There were a few years in there where Oliver wasn’t convinced his sister would survive, once she turned to self-medicating with drugs. 

But she’s been clean for nearly three years, and is in college and finally thriving. He misses her like crazy, but he understands why she left Starling.

“I should visit you soon,” he says. “It’s been awhile.”

“Ollie, a 12 hour layover tacked onto an FBI trip to Eastern Europe is  _ not _ a real visit,” she points out. Again. “Take an actual vacation. A week without John Diggle won’t actually kill you.”

Oliver huffs a laugh. “It might.”

“You need better work-life balance,” she insists. 

“You always say that,” he points out. She’s probably not wrong, but as the older sibling, it’s his duty to never, ever admit it. “Tell me about your classes.”

Thea is thriving, and her contentedness comes through the entire time she’s catching him up on her life. They talk for nearly a half hour, as Oliver sits in the far corner of the waiting room, with at least 10% of his attention on the door Jane had disappeared through with the doctor. 

When he sees her coming back towards him, his breath catches. 

“Ollie?” he hears Thea ask, but he can’t answer her.

Because Jane is walking towards him with a smile, rectangular-framed glasses, and her long, dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. 

_ Felicity _ , he thinks, his mind serving up a slideshow of her.

Oliver’s not moving consciously when he stands, or when the hand holding his phone drops to his side. He’s not thinking about Jane or consequences or anything other than the girl he remembers from that summer when Jane stops in front of him and grins, tilting her head to the side and asking, “What do you think? Are they me? I think they’re me, but I don’t really know  _ me _ very well yet, so I guess the better question is whether they look good on my face. What do you think -- do you like them?”

Oliver manages a nod, and Jane’s smile falters as she stares at him. “Oliver? Are you okay?”

_ Felicity _ , he thinks again, his mind overwhelmed with the vivid memory of her twelve-year-old self showing up at the mansion and storming over to him to show off her new more stylish glasses, her frizzy light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and a grin on her face. His chest aches.

In front of him, Jane’s brow furrows and she watches him with curiosity and a bit of trepidation. “Who’s Felicity?”

The question snaps him out of the daze he’s been in, and he takes an unsteady step backwards. “Shit.”

 

& & &


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to embrace a less stifling writing/editing thing for WIPs, since I can't obsessively revise the entirety of the work every time I sit down to write a new scene, since it's all ALREADY POSTED. (I am not well-suited to writing WIPs.) Anyway. Please excuse the inevitable errors, as I am working outside of my comfort zone. ;)

 

 

 

“Oliver?” Jane presses, and she’s frowning at him now. She inches closer, reaching out a tentative hand to touch his elbow. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he manages, though even he can tell he doesn’t _sound_ fine. His chest feels tight. It’s like double vision -- the familiar sight of this woman, Jane, standing in front of him, and the vivid memory of the girl he lost are colliding in his brain, leaving him speechless.

Breathless.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Jane tells him, her forehead crinkled. “You’re clearly not okay,” she continues, “and you should probably talk to whoever that is on the phone, because she sounds upset?” Oliver tries to muster a response, but Jane keeps going, “And also, who’s Felicity? Is that Felicity?” she wonders, gesturing at his cellphone.

“No, she’s--” Oliver shakes himself out of his panicky haze and points to her glasses. “Those are great. Why don’t you get that squared away, and I’ll--” He holds up his cellphone-- “handle my sister, and then--”

“Then you’ll tell me who Felicity is and why you’re looking at me like you’ve seen a ghost?” Jane supplies with a look that suggests she will not accept another response from him. “Because I got the distinct impression you were calling _me_ Felicity.”

“No, I was just...” Oliver fumbles for words. “Felicity is-- It’s not important.” Even as he attempts to end the discussion, he can tell by the mulish expression on Jane’s face that it will not work.

“Not important,” she echoes skeptically, crossing her arms and glaring up at him. “Your face says different.”

Oliver closes his eyes and takes a slow breath before meeting her gaze. “I need a minute,” he admits, his voice shaking with the effort he’s making to keep himself under control. He is woefully unprepared for this moment.

Jane’s anger melts into empathy, her blue eyes so kind that he has to look away. She touches his forearm with gentle fingers, then turns back to the optometrist, who’s been watching their interaction with confused curiosity.

Oliver makes himself turn away and brings his phone back to his ear. Thea is impatiently repeating his name and threatening him bodily harm if he doesn’t _answer her right now_. “Thea,” he says.

“Finally! What the hell was that?” Thea demands. Loudly.

“Nothing,” he tries. “I’m escorting a witness and--”

“You said Felicity’s name,” Thea interrupts, and he can clearly hear the pain beneath her anger. “Did you-- Is she--?”

“Thea, no,” he interrupts quickly, wanting to stop his sister from spiraling the way he has been. “Nothing’s changed with-- with her case.” It’s the truth, if not really the answer to what she’s asking.

But he should’ve known his stubborn sister would not be so easily deflected. “Okay, but something’s changed,” she insists, speaking over him when tries to break in, “because I haven’t even heard you say her name in at least ten years, and you just did. Why?”

Oliver drops into a chair and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, phone pressed to his ear. “Thea, please. Trust me when I tell you I don’t know anything more than I have for years. There’s no new, documented information about her case.”

The anger drops out of Thea’s voice when she responds. “Then why are you talking about her now, all these years later?”

His mind spins, searching for a good answer to her question. “There’s a woman connected to a case my office is handling,” he explains, carefully choosing partial truths to share, “and she has mannerisms that remind me of-- of Felicity.” It’s still hard to talk about her, especially with Thea. “I just got a little overwhelmed, and--”

“Oh, Ollie,” Thea interrupts, “I wish I was there so I could hug you.”

“I’m okay, Thea,” he answers with a damp laugh. He’s mostly okay, or at least mostly holding it together.  “I’m just sorry to dredge all of this up for you.”

“It’s okay,” she responds quickly. “I don’t mind talking about her. I still think about her.”

“I do, too,” he admits, running a hand over his face and sitting up to find Jane standing quietly a few feet from him. Their gazes lock. “Oh.”

Jane gives him an awkward wave and pantomimes leaving, moving towards the door and slipping out into the hallway to give him a moment. He can’t help the swell of affection he feels for her in response.

“You need to go?” Thea guesses, and the familiar sardonic amusement is back in her voice.

“Yeah, but I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

They say their goodbyes as Oliver pushes himself up and moves to the door. He’s pocketing his cellphone when he steps out into the hallway, scanning until he finds Jane leaning against the wall, focused on the phone in her hand. From the quick motion of her fingers on the screen, he assumes she’s playing a game.

“Ready to go?” he asks quietly, and she startles, one hand landing on her chest as she turns wide eyes his way.

“Wow, you’re sneaky.” She gives herself a little shake and taps something on the phone screen. “That’s a dumb game anyway. All the free ones are insultingly easy.” She falls into step beside him, stealing curious glances as they walk to the elevator. “Everything okay?” She hits the call button.

“Are you hungry?” Oliver asks. Because he’s pretty sure he’s not going to be able to put this off, but there are ways to have the conversation Jane is pushing for -- ways to make it as low stress as possible.

Plus, he’s definitely going to need a drink to settle his nerves.

Jane blinks. “Um. That is not an answer to my question.”

“I’m okay,” he tells her, waiting while she steps onto the elevator. “This isn’t a conversation we should have in an elevator,” he explains, leaning past her to hit the button for P3. “So let’s get dinner, and I’ll explain.”

She studies him suspiciously. “Is this a stalling tactic?”

He can’t quite help but smile. “Not an intentional one,” he says as the elevator dings their arrival. “But I’d like Dig there for this conversation, and I didn’t have much of a lunch.”

Jane sighs as she steps off the elevator and into the underground parking garage. “Fine. But you’re gonna have a hard time topping Big Belly Burger.”

 

& & &

 

Jane, as it turns out, is not a patient person. She’d agreed to wait for dinner, but had begun peppering Oliver with questions as soon as he backed out of that tiny parking space. Dig had agreed to meet up with them, but insisted on bringing Lyla, which pushed back the timeframe by at least an hour, and Oliver did not have an easy time keeping Jane’s curiosity at bay in the interim.

His last mistake was buying Jane coffee to kill time, because by the time they join Lyla and Dig in a corner booth at Drake’s, Jane is practically vibrating with anxiety and caffeine.

“Agent Michaels, Agent Diggle, hi, hello,” Jane greets, her words tumbling out as she drops into the booth and slides in. “Thanks for meeting us, though I still don’t fully understand why this conversation requires a threesome. No, _not--_ I didn’t mean that,” Jane corrects, her nose wrinkling. “Just -- it’s a weird ratio. Three to one, just to have a conversation about who this mysterious Felicity Smoak is.”

Oliver goes still beside her, breath trapped in his throat, while Dig quirks an eloquent eyebrow and Lyla shoots him an irritable look.

“Agent Queen told you about Felicity Smoak?” Lyla asks Jane.

Oliver shakes his head reflexively, even if he can’t get the words out. Because he _didn’t_. He doesn’t even want to tell her now.

“No,” Jane answers with a half-shrug, “I just hate mysteries, so I did a bit of googling in the car.” She holds the burner phone up, then sets it on the table top.

Oliver stares at her for a long moment. “You googled -- _what_? You--?”

“You said _Felicity_ ,” Jane explains, twisting a bit to meet his gaze head on, “with this _look_ on your face, so I knew whatever the backstory there, it’s obviously personal to you. So I googled ‘Oliver Queen’ plus ‘Felicity.’” She shrugs, all nonchalance, like she hasn’t just thrown him for a loop.

Dig and Oliver exchange disbelieving glances, while Lyla simply watches Jane with her trademark poker face. “Based on a single slip up of Agent Queen,” she summarizes, “you pulled information on a case from fifteen years ago?”

Oliver’s attention has already swung back to Jane, and he doesn’t miss the tightening of her expression when Lyla says the word “case.” Jane shakes her head. “Not really. There’s not much in the public domain, except a mention in a fluff piece out of Starling when you,” she turns to Oliver, “were rescued from Afghanistan and brought home. Some throwaway line towards the end about all you and your family have been through, including a childhood tragedy involving a neighbor, Felicity Smoak.” She studies him for a long moment. “I can see from your face I’m right. So who was Felicity Smoak?”

“Jane,” Diggle interjects, saving Oliver from trying to come up with words, “there’s no real handbook for this kind of thing.”

Finally, Jane looks away from Oliver, and he sucks in an unsteady breath.

Jane turns to Dig, who’s using his kindest tone of voice as he starts to explain. “Considering your situation, and Oliver’s past, he asked me to join you because I reinvestigated Felicity Smoak’s disappearance three years ago.”

Oliver is half-turned awkwardly in his seat, unable to take his eyes off of Jane as she considers Dig’s words. “I assume your reinvestigation was three years ago,” she says after a moment, “and not that Felicity Smoak disappeared three years ago.”

“Right,” Dig agrees with a kind smile. “Felicity Smoak disappeared fifteen years ago, when she was twelve.”

Jane nods slowly, then turns and pins Oliver with her gaze. “Do I remind you of her,” she asks, zeroing right in on the question he doesn’t know how to answer, “or do you think I _am_ her?”

The server arrives, rescuing Oliver from that impossible subject. He stumbles through an order -- beer and a sandwich, he thinks, but he honestly can’t remember what he said.

Once the server has all of their orders, Jane shifts in her seat and folds her hands on the tabletop, probably an attempt to cover the fact that she’s trembling. Oliver resists the urge to lay his hand over hers, unsure whether that would be appropriate. Or welcome.

Lyla and Dig have a quick, wordless conversation, and then Lyla speaks. “Why don’t we put a pin in that question and tell you the story of Felicity Smoak,” she suggests. Her words are typically no-nonsense, but Oliver can hear the compassion in her tone of voice.

Jane glances at Oliver, their gazes holding for a long, fraught moment, before she nods. “Okay,” she agrees. “Tell me about Felicity Smoak.”

Oliver casts a desperate look to Diggle, who nods, agreeing wordlessly to take over the narrative when they reach that horrible night. Oliver is just not able to recount it without a storm of emotion, even so many years later. “Felicity Smoak,” he starts, his voice shaky, “was my sister’s friend. Well, first, she was my sister’s math tutor, even though she was only a year older than Thea, but Felicity -- you couldn’t help but like her, and she and Thea became very good friends.”

Oliver pauses when their drinks are delivered, and takes a fortifying sip of his beer. He puts the heavy glass back down on the tabletop and wraps his hands around it, trying to calm his pulse, slow his breathing. Quickly, he runs through a sensory coping mechanism, grounding himself here at Drake’s -- the feel of the glass in his hands, the scent of french fries, the dull roar of a hundred conversations.

When he’s certain he can keep going, he nods once and turns back to Jane. “Felicity’s mother Donna worked really hard, and that meant she worked a lot. So that-- that summer, Felicity spent a lot of time at our house. We--” He stops, clears his throat. “My family has a lot of money, and even though both of my parents worked, we had a housekeeper who was more like a parent, and several other live-in staff members in the house to keep an eye on us, so when Donna couldn’t afford space camp, Felicity ended up spending most of the summer at our house.”

The open empathy on Jane’s face as he recounts his story is almost too much. She reaches over and touches his arm, just above his wrist. “You were friends with her, too.”

Oliver nods. “Yes, I-- She was very special.” He can barely get the words out, his pulse pounding in his ears. His fingers tighten on the glass and he looks to Dig, who clears his throat and takes over.

“On August 12th, Felicity stayed over at the Queen’s mansion.” Jane makes a surprised face at the use of the word _mansion_ but stays quiet as Dig continues, “Somewhere around 1:00, Thea woke up in her room to see a man carrying Felicity out the window. Felicity was either still asleep or unconscious, and Thea immediately ran to her parents. The police arrived within twenty minutes, but aside from a shoe print outside of Thea’s window, there was no real evidence left by whomever took Felicity.”

Oliver lifts his beer glass with trembling hands and takes another sip, watching Jane process this information.

“Oh,” she says softly, dipping her chin and looking down at the tabletop for a long moment. “Felicity was twelve. How old were you?” Jane asks. 

“I was fifteen,” Oliver breathes. It hangs there in the air between them for a long moment. Then Jane's hand moves towards his, and they're holding hands before he realizes what's happening. She squeezes his fingers.

“She was never found,” Jane surmises, holding Oliver’s gaze; he can’t look away. “Right?” He manages a nod. She’s studying him as she considers what to say next. “And you think I’m her? Felicity?”

Oliver opens his mouth to demur, to explain they don’t know anything, to list all their options for trying to confirm or deny his admittedly wild theory, but instead, what he says is: “God, I hope so.”

 

& & &

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: If you need resources for missing children, please visit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: http://www.missingkids.com/theissues/missing 
> 
> Also, the charitably minded ShippingAcademy has a fundraiser for the NCMEC in honor of Baby Sara Diggle: https://www.razoo.com/story/Babysaradiggle Please consider donating if you can!

**Author's Note:**

> Please note I'm still writing this, so there will be updates every couple of weeks.


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